The final chime of Jabara's staff faded into the drumming silence. The sound of the royal war drum, the gangan, cracked through the air—a heavy, insistent rhythm that signified the start of the Quarter-Finals.
Adebayo exploded into motion.
He didn't charge with brute force; he moved with the educated fury of the Mgba wrestling tradition. His movement was a low, sweeping run, his arms wide, seeking to grapple and subdue. His Earth aṣẹ surged from the soles of his feet, binding him to the ground in a thunderous, unbreakable connection.
Low reacted with the desperate, chaotic energy that defined his persona. She knew he couldn't match Adebayo's weight or his deep, spiritual root to the earth. Instead of meeting the charge, she feigned panic, executing a sloppy, backward roll that ended with her axe scraping a wide circle in the dirt. It was a crude, defensive maneuver designed to look like a desperate scramble.
"He's fighting the dwarf's height," Amara observed from the Contender's Perch, her voice a hushed, intense whisper. She leaned forward, utterly captivated. "He expects a heavy, head-on collision. Grom will not give him one."
Zola, her light aṣẹ shimmering faintly as she focused, nodded. "He's trying to break his rhythm. Adebayo's style is a prayer; it has a flow. Grom is pure dissonance."
On the royal balcony, King Rega watched, his eyes intent.
"Your Majesty, the dwarf is clearly a brute," said Kenya, the silent sentinel, ever focused on physical strength. "Adebayo will pin him within moments."
"Look closer, Kenya," Rega commanded, his voice a low, analytical growl. "He avoids the ground. He keeps the fight in the air, using the axe for leverage. He fights with the tactics of a guerrilla, not a brute. He's too clever for the part he plays." He glanced at Njiru, who stood slightly behind him, his smile subtly twisted. "Perhaps, Njiru, we should not assume all chaos is without its own master."
Njiru simply bowed, offering no comment.
Adebayo, denied the initial grapple, adapted instantly. He stomped, and the very ground beneath Grom buckled. A wave of concussive force—pure Earth aṣẹ—rolled outward. Grom stumbled, the vibration momentarily seizing his small frame.
"Now!" Adebayo roared, sensing his opportunity. He switched tactics, discarding the grapple for a brutal, sweeping leg-hook intended to put Low flat on the earth—his true domain.
Low saw it coming—a massive, dirt-slinging hook that aimed to uproot her. She leaped, using the momentum of the sweep to launch herself completely over Adebayo's head. She landed light as a cat, but the adrenaline rush was wearing thin. Adebayo's force was monumental.
He's too strong, a desperate voice screamed in Low's mind. My human strength won't last against him. I need more. I need to let it out.
She was referring to the terrible, cursed werebear aṣẹ that she normally kept fiercely caged. The price of using it was the loss of control, a bloodthirsty madness that she dreaded more than any defeat.
"He's fast, but he's running out of room!" Nurabia Kabirui observed from the Contender's Perch, her voice sharp. "Adebayo is controlling the arena. He drives him to the edge, then the center. He leaves him nowhere to run."
Adebayo came at her again, forcing Low to engage. Axe vs. Muscle. The sheer force of his charge slammed into Low, nearly shattering the bones in her arm. Low locked her arms in a desperate cross-block, but the blow was like being struck by a falling tree. She went skidding back, planting her axe in the sand to stop her momentum.
"She's on the defensive limit," Jacqueline whispered urgently to Leonotis. "He's using pure Oke àṣẹ—mountain and hill. It's relentless, designed to wear out a lesser opponent and bury them. If she doesn't counter his aṣẹ, she's lost."
Leonotis kept his face passive, but inside, he was frantic. She's right. Her chaos isn't enough. Adebayo's stable. She needs a core of power she doesn't have—not human power.
Low felt the tell-tale rush of forbidden power. The edges of her vision began to darken, and a snarl threatened to escape her throat. The werebear was clawing at the bars of the cage she kept within her soul.
Not yet. I can't lose it here. Not in front of King Rega.
She fought back, forcing the rage down, channeling every ounce of aṣẹ she had into the axe handle itself. The axe, already heavy, felt like lead.
Adebayo seized the moment of her internal struggle. He dropped low and, with a powerful upward drive, attempted a classic Mgba throw, aiming to toss him out of the ring entirely.
Low knew that hitting the ground with that force would break bones. In that split second of terror, she didn't choose to fight like Grom or the werebear; she fought like the twelve-year-old Low—desperate, resourceful, and sneaky.
As Adebayo's arm clamped around her waist, she let the axe go, allowing it to clatter harmlessly into the sand. This distraction was enough. As Adebayo momentarily registered the abandoned weapon, Low twisted her body, using the movement to stab two fingers directly into the gap of Adebayo's taped ribs.
A gasp of agony tore through Adebayo's chant. The Earth aṣẹ binding him to the floor flickered, disrupted by the sharp, localized pain.
Low pulled away instantly, snatching her axe in a single, fluid motion. She then used the momentary lapse in Adebayo's Earth aṣẹ to drive the flat of her axe blade into his diaphragm, using the momentum of Adebayo's own throw against him.
Adebayo staggered back, clutching his ribs, his face a mask of shocked pain. The crowd roared in stunned disbelief at the display of brutal tactics.
"He used his injury! Dishonorable!" Zuri cried out from the King's box.
Rega frowned, yet he was impressed. "Dishonor is merely opportunity, Zuri. He found the weakness and exploited it. A true warrior." He looked at Kenya, who remained silent, her expression unreadable.
In the Perch, Zola was trembling, not from cold, but from sheer excitement. "He's brilliant! He broke his body to break his spirit's connection to the Earth!"
"Precisely," Amara said, her eyes gleaming with cold approval.
Leonotis was surprised but relieved. "He's still standing," he whispered, his eyes wide.
Adebayo was indeed still standing. He straightened slowly, breathing raggedly. He looked down at the point where Low had stabbed his ribs, then at the small dwarf, the shock fading into a fierce, wounded rage. He hadn't just been hurt; he had been insulted. The Earth aṣẹ that had flickered around him now surged, blazing with the pure, vengeful fury of a mountain pushed too far.
"You fight with trickery!" Adebayo roared, discarding the traditions of Mgba entirely. He lunged, a piston of muscle and raw Earth aṣẹ. He didn't try to pin Grom; he tried to crush him.
Low saw the end coming. The berserker fury was unleashed, and she had no more tricks. Her human strength was done.
It's time, she thought grimly. Better to win with the werebear than lose and fail Leonotis.
She opened the cage. The cursed aṣẹ exploded outward.
Her eyes flashed with a brief, terrifying golden light. His veins momentarily pulsed black beneath her skin, and a low, terrifying snarl tore free. For a fraction of a second, the dwarf mercenary Grom Stonehand vanished, replaced by a squat, coiled, impossibly fast caged bear.
She met Adebayo's charge head-on. She didn't use her axe. She abandoned it and dropped to all fours. Her sudden drop threw Adebayo off guard and Low delivered an animal like low-to-the-ground takle. The power in the blow was supernatural. It wasn't muscle; it was the raw, uncontained aṣẹ of the werebear driving her legs.
Adebayo's Earth aṣẹ met the primal force. The two waves of power collided—pure foundation against raw animal power. The clash was audible, like two massive stones grinding together.
Adebayo flew. Not just pushed, but launched backward, landing outside the ring with a sickening crunch that silenced the crowd. He lay still, his Earth aṣẹ spent and broken.
Low stood alone, breathing hard. The golden light in her eyes faded, the black veins receded, and the snarl died in her throat. She snatched up her axe, looking dazed, exhausted, and utterly terrified of the power she had just unleashed.
The crowd roared. All they saw was an amazing victory.
"The winner, by throw-out, is Grom Stonehand!" Jabara announced her staff pointed at the still figure of Adebayo.
In the Contender's Perch, Leonotis sagged in relief, but Zola had a disturbed look on her face.
Amara looked at the dwarf intently. "That was power. Unnatural power."
Zola whispered, "He did it. He beat the foundation."
On the royal balcony, King Rega's smile was wide, cold, and utterly triumphant. He had seen the flicker of golden light, the momentary snarl of the beast.
"Zuri," Rega commanded, his voice filled with a possessive greed. "Send a healer to Adebayo. And send a royal tailor to Grom. That one will be mine."
Low looked up, her gaze instinctively finding the King's box. He met Rega's victorious stare and knew, with absolute dread, that she hadn't just won a match.
Low walked slowly, her steps heavy on the packed earth of the Colosseum floor. The roar of the crowd, which moments ago had been an overwhelming tide of sound, now felt distant and muted. The path to the fighter's perch, where she was meant to sit with the other champions, was painfully long.
She stopped abruptly.
Ahead of her, a pair of attendants, their faces grim, were carefully carrying Adebayo's unconscious body away on a stretcher woven from thick reeds. His skin, a rich dark mahogany, was blotched with purple bruises, and his right arm was held in a crude, tight splint. Just looking at the unnaturally twisted angle of his leg made her stomach clench.
How many broken bones had I given him? she wondered, the cold calculation echoing in the vast, empty space where her guilt was creeping in.
"This was necessary," she whispered to the quiet air, the phrase a well-worn mantra. "I had to win, didn't I?"
She let out a soft, shaky sigh, forcing herself to turn toward the steps leading up to the perch.
Then, she paused.
A faint, almost imperceptible scent brushed past her, followed by a sudden, intense feeling. She was being watched.
All the frantic business with the Tournament, the desperate plan to retrieve Gethii and Chinakah from the dungeons, the sheer pressure of survival—it had all pushed this feeling to the back of her mind. Yet, here it was again, that same familiar, unsettling sensation she'd experienced in the library when she and Zombiel were researching how to break her curse.
Low spun around, eyes frantically scanning the dizzying spectacle of the packed Colosseum. There were thousands of people here, tens of thousands, crammed onto the stone terraces, a sea of faces blurring into an insurmountable crowd. Finding a single person in this throng was impossible, especially now, when the tournament had brought in people from every corner of the realm.
The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, standing rigid and cold. She searched, her muscles tightening, but the scent and the feeling vanished as quickly as they had arrived. It was gone.
Who could it be?
One of King Rega's royal guards? No, she had seen them standing stiffly at his side, all day.
Maybe it was...
Her eyes widened slightly as the hazy memory of a giant of a man—a brute who had walked by her when they first arrived at the capital—flashed into her mind. She tried to picture his face, to match the memory to the watching sensation, when a voice spoke startlingly close.
"Grom Stonehand."
Low flinched and looked forward. A small man in an embroidered tunic, who looked no older than a teenager and was carrying a leather roll, was gazing up at her with bright, earnest eyes.
"I am the Royal Tailor," the small attendant chirped, beaming. "The King has asked me to get you fitted for new armor after the tournament. I will come to your room this evening."
"Uh... what tailor?" Low asked, completely caught off guard, the intensity of the unknown watcher dissolving under the mundane distraction. "Yes! Come to my room. I'll be waiting for you."
"Right!" the tailor affirmed, nodding decisively before turning and skipping off down the aisle.
Low shook her head, running a hand through her locs. A new set of armor. What was the King playing at?
She let the mystery of the watcher recede once more, took a deep breath, and finally climbed the steps to take her seat beside Leonotis.